By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
Be it traditional orange or iconic blue, the participation of two football giants Netherlands and Italy have added more colours to the T-20 World Cup 2026 making the cricket more global than ever before.
At Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday (Feb 10), Bas de leede led the Dutch assault to give Netherlands an easy seven wicket victory over Namibia. Leede who remained not out at 72 (4x6s, 5x4s) played some excellent shots all over the ground. He also took two wickets. Leede was also involved in the spectacular run out of Namibian batter Ruben Trumpelmann at the batting end. After being hit on the midriff, Trumpelmann tried to take a single but was sent back. Losing no time, Leede ran with full speed towards the batting end to pick up the ball and threw on the stumps to run out Trumpelmann, who was left shellshocked.
Cricket has been played in the Netherlands since at least the 19th century, and in the 1860s was considered a major sport. Other sports like football have long since surpassed cricket in popularity amongst the Dutch but there are around 6,500 cricketers, who take avid interest to show that cricket is still booming in Netherlands. The first national association, the forerunner of today’s KNCB, was formed in 1883, and the Netherlands achieved associate membership of the ICC in 1966.
The Dutch national side has qualified for the ODI World Cup and the ICC World T-20 many times. The team previously had ODI status, but lost it at the 2014 World Cup Qualifier. They regained the ODI status after clinching the ICC World Cricket League Championship title in 2017.
The popularity of cricket in the Netherlands has also influenced the sport’s development in both former Dutch colonies and current members of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Cricket in Indonesia was introduced by the Dutch. Suriname is an associate member of the ICC.
On Monday (Feb 9), Italy played very well against Scotland in its first debut match of the T-20 World Cup. But the Italian men in blue couldn’t match the strength of Scots at Eden Gardens in Kolkata and lost the match by 73 runs.
The earliest mention of cricket in Italy is of a match played by Admiral Nelson’s sailors in 1793 during a stop in Naples. Around the end of the 19th century, several combined cricket and association football clubs formed, including the world-famous A.C. Milan, which was originally the Milan Cricket and Football Club and the first Italian football team Genoa Cricket and Football Club, which was originally the Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club. But these clubs soon forgot about cricket and concentrated on football. Cricket started to be revived after the Second World War. Cricket flourished in Rome in the 1960s at a superb field which looked across to St. Peter’s dome from Villa Doria Pamphili.
